R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021) Pt.1

R. Murray Schafer recently passed away on August 14th 2021. If you’re someone who works with sound or enjoys sound art or experimental music–or you’ve just thrown around the word “soundscape”–you’ve probably engaged with his intellectual legacy. Schafer was one of Canada’s most influential avant-garde composers. He was also the creator of acoustic ecology, the founder of the World Soundscape Project, and the author of the classic book The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. He brought a musician’s ear to the field of ecology and he brought an ecological perspective to music. And he bequeathed us a generative vocabulary for talking about and thinking about sound. This is the first of a two-part series on R. Murray Schafer. Next month, we speak with two of Schafer’s critics–Mitchell Akiyama and Jonathan Sterne. But today, we speak with three of Schafer’s associates to understand the person, his creative works, and his lasting impact on the study of sound: * Ellen Waterman, ethnomusicologist, flutist, and Schafer expert * Hildegard Westerkamp, soundscape composer and member of the World Soundscape Project * Eric Leonardson, sound artist and President of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology Creative works heard on today’s show: * Listen, a short film on Schafer, directed by David New. * Snowforms, R. Murray Schafer * The Greatest Show, R. Murray Schafer * The Crown Of Ariadne, R. Murray Schafer * Wolf Music V: Nocturne, R. Murray Schafer * Le Testament, Ezra Pound * Loving, R. Murray Schafer * Beneath the Forest Floor, Hildegard Westerkamp * Miniwanka, R. Murray Schafer Special thanks to Elisabeth Hodges for translation assistance, Alex Blue V for our outtro music, and Craig Eley for his dramatic turn as R. Murray Schafer. Today’s show was produced and edited by Mack Hagood with additional editing by Ravi Krishnaswami. Transcript  [00:00:00] Ethereal Voice: This…is…Phantom Power. [Crow Squawking] R. Murray Schafer: A soundscape is any collection of sounds almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions.

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Sound is all around us, but we give little thought to its invisible influence. Dr. Mack Hagood explores the world of sound studies with the world's most amazing sound scholars, sound artists, and acoustic ecologists. How are noise-cancelling headphones changing social life? What did silent films sound like? Is listening to audiobooks really reading? How did computers learn to speak? How do race, gender, and disability shape our listening? What do live musicians actually hear in those in-ear monitors? Why does your office sound so bad? What are Sound Art and Radio Art? How do historians study the sounds of the past? Can we enter the sonic perspective of animals? We've broken down Yoko Ono's scream, John Cage's silence, Houston hip hop, Iranian noise music, the politics of EDM, and audio ink blot tests for blind people. Phantom Power is the podcast that both newcomers and experts in sound studies, sound art, and acoustic ecology listen to--combining intellectual rigor and great audio.